{"id":37943,"date":"2024-08-28T10:09:58","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T17:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=37943"},"modified":"2024-08-28T10:09:58","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T17:09:58","slug":"what-would-bring-you-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/what-would-bring-you-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"What Would Bring You Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“I can’t believe I am here again!”<\/p>\n

I stared across the Holy City of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. This special and remarkable place that I had visited now three times, forever etched in my mind, and a place I think of longingly almost every day I’m away. Below me the white sepulchers of the Mount of Olives are staunchly contrasted with the green olive trees of the Garden of Gethsemane. And between them, a road.<\/p>\n

As we walk, we sing, “Hosanna, Hosanna” just like the crowd did on the Palm Sunday when Jesus came to Jerusalem as King. It is always the first stop when I lead trips to Jerusalem and the best way to enter the \u201cCity of Peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

But rejoicing quickly turns to a different emotion as you enter the gates of a church called, “Dominus Flevit” or “Jesus Wept”. This church commemorates the spot where Jesus got off of his donkey and wept over the city of Jerusalem. As he is weeping in Luke’s Gospel, he says, \u201cIf you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace\u2014but now it is hidden from your eyes.”[1]<\/a> Jesus, God of the Universe, Messiah and King had come to bring people true peace, but they were going to reject Him, ridicule Him and crucify Him.<\/p>\n

On this particular trip, as we stopped and pondered this moment in Scriptures, the Muslim call to prayer came over the air from the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount where the Jewish temple once stood. On the other side of the temple mount, Jews pray day and night at the Western Wall of the temple, the closest place they are allowed to get to the Holy of Holies that once housed the very presence of God. I found myself, on this particular trip, also weeping for the city of Jerusalem and for those that have sought peace in anything other than Jesus and His redemptive work on the cross.<\/p>\n

The complexity of Israel and Palestine, its history, its bloodshed and heartache and the continual question of how to bring peace in the part of the world has always been something that I’ve tried my best to understand every time I go to Israel by listening to those who call this place their home: Jewish Israelis, Arab Israelis, Messianic Jewish Israelis, Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians. Each of them has a strong opinion about how to bring peace, each of them a different pathway forward. This complexity humbles me and has always brought me to my knees to pray for peace in the precious part of the world.<\/p>\n

Martin Bunton’s book has helped me fill in some of the different gaps in history that I have read before, but not remembered. I will confess I was a little surprised at Bunton’s assertion in his introduction that, “weariness\u2026has reinforced an ahistorical notion of the conflict as an ancient and religious one. The main challenge to resolving the conflict is essentially one of drawing borders.\u201d[2]<\/a> This claim that the complex conflict between Palestine and Israel is simply about the drawing of borders feels overly simplistic to me, because he sees land from an empirically western mindset. The problem with this, in my opinion, is that this is not how the Land is described to me by the people I have listened to in Israel and Palestine. Land is religious. Land is a birthright. Land is ancient. It is about more than drawing borders. It is deeper than a simple modern state or two state solution.<\/p>\n

But while I disagree with Bunton’s perspective on this, it was very helpful to see how some of the historical engagement with the founding of the current nation of Israel has contributed to the complex situations of today. For example, Bunton aptly observes that, during the time of British rule in the 1930s, \u201cwhat was unique in Palestine was the general failure to draw it cohabiting populations into basic mechanisms of government, such as a legislative assembly\u2026The failure to create a legislative council in Palestine represents a key turning point in the country\u2019s history.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

This short history will be a helpful resource that I can continue to come back to for information on the different periods of modern history that have shaped the current conflict.<\/p>\n

A month or so after the atrocities of October 7th, I noticed how social media had careened into the virtue signaling it often does around the war in Gaza. I saw posts that said, “I stand with Israel!” or “I stand with Palestine!” As a pastor, I’ve wrestled with how to preach and engage on political and cultural hot button issues from the pulpit. One of the challenges of engaging in these issues in our present age is that we want simple responses and simple answers to complex questions. Also, we are often looking for pastors and leaders to affirm the way we’re already thinking about something, rather than challenging us to think deeper about whatever issues we are being faced with. But on one Sunday during a message, led by the Holy Spirit, I took a few minutes before the sermon I was planning to preach, to invite our church into three things as a response to what was unfolding in Israel and Gaza, and these are the three ways I’m continuing to encourage our church to practice in light of the ongoing conflict in this region of the world.<\/p>\n

The first invitation was to “Stand with Jesus”. In Joshua 5 an Angel of the LORD appears to Joshua before the city of Jericho falls and Joshua asks the messenger, “\u201cAre you for us or for our enemies?\u201d” The messenger replied, “\u201cNeither…but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

While it can be tempting to take sides between Israel and Palestine, or other complex issues where they seem to be two opposing parties, it is important to remember that Jesus doesn\u2019t take sides in this way. Instead, Jesus stands with the hurting and the broken on all sides. He weeps with those who weep and mourns with those who mourn, and calls us to do the same[5]<\/a>. When we stand with Jesus, we avoid the pitfalls of “us vs. them” thinking that is so prevalent in our world, but such a cancer to the kingdom of God.<\/p>\n

The second thing I invited our church to do was to “pray for the church in that region”. I reminded them that we have sisters and brothers in Palestine, in Gaza, Israel, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria. God is raising up His church in that reason and they need our prayer to be faithful witnesses in this present crisis. The purpose of this is to remember that the body of Christ transcends national borders, ethnic identities or political affiliations and creates a Family of God that is bigger, broader and stronger than any of the categories the world and its value system wants to work with.<\/p>\n

The third thing I invited our church to do was to “remember the cross”. The cross is where God showed us what true power really is. The cross is where God showed us how we love our enemies and the cross is where God disarmed the powers of violence and evil and, in the death of Jesus, disarmed even sin and death themselves. In Revelation 12 we’re told that God’s people triumphed over the Accuser, “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.\u201d[6]<\/a> My invitation to our church, and challenge to myself, is to remember that it will not be with weapons of war that ultimate peace will be obtained but instead with sacrifice, forgiveness and cruciform love. This might seem na\u00efve or overly simplistic. I recognize the pain and destruction that has been caused is tremendous. But I believe that the Cross of Christ has the power to overcome the deepest divisions of our world, so it must be possible in this crisis in this part of the world God loves and died for.<\/p>\n

This week the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem released a statement calling for warring parties to end the bloodshed and the violence. Together they call on, \u201cChristians around the world to promote a vision of life and peace throughout our war-torn region\u201d and to \u201crecommit ourselves towards working and praying together in the hope that, by the grace of the Almighty, we might begin to realize this sacred vision of peace among all God\u2019s children.\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 May it be so in me. May it be so in us. May it be so it the Holy Land.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Luke 19:42, NIV<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>[2] Bunton, Martin. The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Very Short Introduction<\/em>, Xii.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Bunton, 25.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Joshua 5:13-14, NIV.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Romans 12:15, NIV.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Revelation 12:11, NIV.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I can’t believe I am here again!” I stared across the Holy City of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. This special and remarkable place that I had visited now three times, forever etched in my mind, and a place I think of longingly almost every day I’m away. Below me the white sepulchers of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3222,2967],"class_list":["post-37943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bunton","tag-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37943"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37995,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37943\/revisions\/37995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}